Each morning at Sky Garden STX, I step out onto the deck of my studio and let the sounds of the island caress me. The pearly-eyed thrashers call first—raspy, relentless, full of attitude. They dart through the trees like mischief in motion. Then the doves join in, their coos low and mournful, like lullabies passed down from long ago.
I listen.
Their chorus is not just background noise. It’s an invocation. The rhythm of wings, the hush between calls, the way the birds stake hold of space with sound. It’s music. It’s memory.
The birds are teaching me to pause, to trust the silences between gestures. To let motion emerge from stillness.
I’ve started wondering: What does it look like to be guided by birds? Not as subject matter, but in process, in tempo, in spirit? I’m not sure yet. But recently I came across a flipbook machine by J.C. Fontanive, the way it cycles through images of birds in flight—over and over, rhythmic, hypnotic, alive—it mirrors what I feel on the deck each morning: movement as meditation. Repetition as revelation.
I don’t know exactly where this is going. But I do know that before I pick up any materials, I always listen first. To the wind. To the wings. To the wild logic of song.
Let’s see what unfolds.
J.C. Fontanive
Ornithology L, 2018
four-color screen print on Bristol paper, stainless steel, motor and electronics
Threads whisper across the skin like breath—sun-warmed, musk-laced, and barely there. Light pulses through glass and fiber, teasing scent into form, until all that’s left is sensation suspended in air. This work doesn’t depict fragrance; it embodies it—an atmosphere where cloud becomes cloth and desire lingers in the space between touch and memory. It hovers between sensation and suggestion, where softness gathers form and scent becomes intimacy. Neither masculine nor feminine, but something in between—an alchemy of opposites, drifting toward the liminal, the numinous, the sublime. A breath held in silk and light, coaxing the senses into a slow unravel.
This display captures the essence of a cloud in a bottle, where airy meets musk in an interplay of weightlessness and sensuality. The woven structure, perfume bottles, and illumination create a dreamlike atmosphere—a triptych of unbearable lightness. The draped strings of bottle caps and beads add a playful touch, their movement producing a whisper of sound, that lingers in the air.
Entre Genres—between genders—echoes in the in-between: between what’s seen and what’s felt, between softness and sharpness, between what we carry and what we choose to let go.
When I wrap and weave with reclaimed materials—veggie mesh bags, marine line, sari yarn, beads, cowrie shells, bottle caps—I’m telling stories that don’t fit neatly into boxes. These are stories about how gender, race, memory, and power collide. They’re messy, layered, sometimes contradictory—just like the objects I gather.
I don’t believe in fixed categories. My practice is fluid. A soft sculpture can be a shield. A braid can draw a boundary. A shopping cart can carry both trauma and transformation. The materials I use slip between definitions—just like I do. Entre Genres is a space I return to again and again. It’s where I feel most alive.
In my hands, materials shift. They become tools of protection, celebration, resistance. I’m not interested in clean edges—I’m drawn to what happens when we blur them, stretch them, braid something new from the fray.
That’s where the beauty lives—in the becoming.
When I first smelled the fragrance—a cloud of musks—I thought of sunrise. That first light brushing across the sky, the hush of morning dew, the coo of doves at dawn. I wanted to turn that feeling into form—something you don’t just see, but sense, like the memory of a sun-kissed face.
To make this piece, I collaborated with Nate Watson to build a custom loom lightbox. I wanted the light to pass through the weaving, refracted by glass bottles. I deconstructed marine line into soft fibers and warped the loom, weaving cloudlike gestures into the frame to capture that airy, floating feeling.
Every material was chosen for how it plays with light—how it glows, reflects, and diffuses, just like scent disperses in the air. The musks—warm, intimate, almost skin-like—inspired my palette and textures. I wove reclaimed fabric in gentle, breath-like rhythms, creating a softness that invites closeness without fully revealing itself.
Rather than represent the scent literally, I focused on the sensation—how musk lingers close to the body, how it lives in that space between presence and absence. This piece doesn’t just exist in space; it inhabits it, like a fragrance does. It’s about drift, about trace, about what lingers.
Much of my work lives in this realm—between touch and memory, between what’s held and what’s released. A cloud of musks became an invitation to make something that doesn’t shout, but whispers. Something that floats in the air between us.
2025 is shaping up to be a powerful year of storytelling, connection, and expansive visibility for my work across the U.S. and beyond. From New York City to San Diego, and even home on St. Croix, I’m honored to present a range of projects that explore collective memory, material transformation, and healing through fiber. Here’s where you can find me:
1-54 Contemporary African Art Fair Dates: May 8–11, 2025 Location: Halo, 28 Liberty Street, NYC I’m thrilled to return to 1-54, the leading fair dedicated to contemporary African art, presenting new work that bridges ancestral narratives with present-day urgency.
The Future Belongs to the Loving Dates: May 3 – July 31, 2025 Location: MAPSpace, 6 N Pearl St 4th Floor, Port Chester, NY More Info I’ll be sharing Free Your Mind, a participatory installation unpacking microaggressions and offering a communal space for release and reflection.
FIBER 2025 Dates: May 10 – June 19, 2025 Opening Reception: May 17, 2025 Location: Silvermine Galleries, 1037 Silvermine Rd, New Canaan, CT My Blackity Black Blanket Library Drape will be featured—an expansive textile work exploring Black identity, protection, and cultural memory.
Sky Garden Studio Tour & Ecopark Walk Date: June 19, 2025, 11am–2pm Location: Sky Garden Gallery Retreat, Kingshill, St. Croix, USVI Come experience where the magic happens. I’ll be hosting an intimate studio tour and a guided walk through the ecopark—sharing process, stories, and island-grown inspiration.
Fiberart International 2025 Dates: June 20 – August 30, 2025 Location: Brew House Arts, 711 S 21st St #210, Pittsburgh, PA This juried exhibition celebrates innovation in contemporary fiber art—an honor to be included among such dynamic global voices.
MidAtlantic Fiber Association Conference: Emotional Baggage Cart Parade Dates: June 26–29, 2025 Location: Millersville University, Millersville, PA Details Here My interactive Emotional Baggage Cart Parade installation will invite participants to name, confront, and ceremoniously discard emotional burdens.
Interpretations 2025 Dates: October 17, 2025 – January 10, 2026 Location: Visions Museum of Textile Art, 2825 Dewey Rd #100, San Diego, CA
If you’re near any of these locations, I would love to see you! Each exhibition is an invitation to engage, reflect, and participate in the stories woven into my work. Stay tuned for more details and behind-the-scenes updates.
As the days grow longer and the light shifts, so too does my work—stretching itself into new spaces, new conversations, and new communities. I’m thrilled to share a series of upcoming exhibitions and events where my artwork will be on view. From the streets of New York City to the hills of St. Croix, from intimate gallery walks to fiber-filled parades—there’s something powerful on the horizon.
The Future Belongs to the Loving
May 3 – July 31, 2025 MAPSpace | 6 N Pearl St, 4th Floor, Port Chester, NY Collaborative Events + Opening Reception: May 3 🔗 https://mapspace.art
This exhibition is an invitation to imagine futures rooted in radical love and shared care. Join me for collaborative programming and a reception on May 3.
1-54 Contemporary African Art Fair
May 8–11, 2025 Halo, 28 Liberty Street, New York, NY
I’m honored to present work at 1-54, the leading international art fair dedicated to contemporary African art. Nestled in the heart of the city, this gathering is a celebration of global Black creativity. Come find me at Halo.
May 10 – June 19, 2025 Opening Reception: May 17, 2025 Silvermine Galleries, 1037 Silvermine Rd, New Canaan, CT
Fiber art holds stories in every strand. I’m thrilled to exhibit Blackity Black Blanket Library Ladders Drape in FIBER 2025, among artists who manipulate thread, texture, and tension to powerful ends. Let’s schedule a meet during the show run and feel the warp and weft of connection.
Theda Sandiford Sky Garden STX Studio Tour / Ecopark Walk
June 19, 2025 | 11:00 AM – 2:00 PM Sky Garden Gallery Retreat, Kingshill, St. Croix, VI
On Juneteenth, I invite you into my island sanctuary. Walk with me through Sky Garden STX Studio and Ecopark, tour where magic is made, and witness how marine debris and ancestral memory converge. This is art as ritual, land as teacher.
Fiberart International 2025
June 20 – August 30, 2025 Public Opening: June 20 | 4:30 – 8:00 PM Brew House Arts, 711 S 21st St #210, Pittsburgh, PA June 21: Juror’s Talk (TBD) + Artist-led Tour 11 AM – 12 PM
Pittsburgh will be the beating heart of the fiber art world this summer, and I’m proud to be part of this dynamic exhibition. Mark your calendars for the opening and weekend programming—fiber is having its moment, and I’m bringing Rainforest Rhapsody with me.
MidAtlantic Fiber Association Conference: Emotional Baggage Cart Parade
June 26–29, 2025 Millersville University, Millersville, PA Learn More Here
Come witness the Emotional Baggage Cart Parade—an interactive, mobile installation inviting participants to unpack what they carry and reflect on collective healing. Join us at MAFA and walk with intention.
From ziptie blankets on ladders to carts packed with memory and resistance, these works are not just objects—they’re vessels of story, tools of transformation, and mirrors reflecting the world we live in.
Counting rice evokes repetition, patience, devotion, and ancestral memory. It’s both meditative and meticulous—a task sometimes used to test sanity or teach discipline, but also to slow down time.
I shop abandoned carts the way some people browse thrift stores—curious, reverent, searching for forgotten truths. Left behind in alleyways, wedged between dumpsters, ghosted near bus stops—these carts speak. They are quiet monuments to lives interrupted.
Each one begins as a portrait of absence. Bent wheels. Rusted frames. Sometimes discarded trash still clings to the grating. Sometimes, only the echo of the person who once claimed it remains. These objects evoke more than loss—they testify. To displacement. To a time when we moved through stores with baskets in hand. To survival in plain sight.
They remind me of the stateless. The unhoused. The invisible laborers who build our cities and are swept away like dust. Each cart in my Emotional Baggage Cart series becomes a ritual of witnessing. I dress them in what we carry: zip ties, frayed rope, yarn, beads. Remnants upon remnants upon remnants.
They transform—into portals. Shrines. Evidence. Sculptures of grit and possibility. Through each cart, I ask:
Whose burdens are we pretending not to see?
Theda Sandiford Grass Is Not Greener 40 x 21 x 39 in 2022Theda Sandiford Grass Is Not Greener 40 x 21 x 39 in 2022Theda Sandiford Grass Is Not Greener 40 x 21 x 39 in Gold painted recovered shopping cart with a bicycle bell, paracord, zip tie blanket, LED strobe light, batterie operated LED star lights and basket woven with marine line, fabric and paracord. 2022
I’m honored and excited to share that my interactive installation Free Your Mind will be featured in the upcoming exhibition The Future Belongs to the Loving, on view from May 3 through July 31, 2025 at MAPSpace, located at 6 N Pearl St, 4th Floor, Port Chester, NY.
This show could not be more timely—or more necessary.
Opening Day is May 3rd, and it promises to be a vibrant, full-day celebration of collective creativity, healing, and resistance through the power of art. From morning coffee and community connection to workshops, performances, and living sculpture, the day will be brimming with opportunities to engage, reflect, and rejoice.
Exhibition + Opening Day Details:
May 3, 2025 | 🕚 11am – 7pm MAPSpace, 6 N Pearl St 4th Floor, Port Chester, NY Visit MAPSpace
Collaborative Events Schedule:
11:00–11:30 AM – Coffee + Welcome Remarks
11:30–12:30 PM – Sound Bath Workshop with Serena Buschi
1:00–5:00 PM – Rotating Presentations with Theda Sandiford (that’s me!), Natlaya Khorover, and Michael Sylvan Robinson
5:00 PM – Performance by Ms Muscle
5:00–7:00 PM – Living Sculpture with Amy Keefer
About Free Your Mind
Free Your Mind invites viewers and participants alike to confront and release the weight of microaggressions—those subtle, often unintentional moments that carry very real emotional impact.
This piece provides a space of craftivist healing. Participants inscribe the microaggressions they’ve experienced on colorful ribbons, tying them onto the installation and quite literally freeing them from the confines of personal silence. As the work grows, it becomes an evolving, visible, communal record of disempowering interactions—open for reflection, conversation, and, ideally, transformation.
This work lives at the intersection of artivism and collective care, and I’m honored to share it alongside fellow artists who are also committed to joy, activism, and connection through creative expression.
The Future Belongs to the Loving asks: How do we create loving, resilient communities in a world that feels increasingly fragmented and fragile? I believe we begin by telling the truth, creating together, and holding space for each other—and that’s exactly what this show is about.
Come out, connect, and contribute. I can’t wait to see you there.
Offering to the Lost Ones Theda Sandiford 42x10x5” Recovered marine line, sea tumbled, woven and knotted with eyelash yarn, acrylic yarn , deconstructed line, glass beads, shells, chain and hand made bells. 2024
Offering to the Lost Ones is a sacred beacon of remembrance, crafted to honor the spirits lost during the transatlantic slave trade while reflecting on humanity’s ongoing disruption of the natural world. Using recovered marine line, sea-tumbled and woven with eyelash yarn, acrylic yarn, deconstructed line, glass beads, shells, chains, and handmade bells, this work becomes a poignant bridge between memory and materiality, life and loss.
The materials themselves—objects shaped by the violence of tropical storms and hurricanes—carry dual histories. They embody the enduring impact of environmental devastation and echo the turbulent seas that bore witness to unimaginable human suffering. Each knot, bead, and bell in this piece holds space for reflection, transforming debris into a solemn offering to the lost ones whose names and stories dissolved into the depths of the Atlantic.
This work evokes the fractured journey of the Middle Passage, where bodies cast into an ocean that became both a witness and a grave. The fragile interplay of synthetic and organic elements—chains and bells against shells and glass—mirrors the tension between bondage and liberation, death and resilience.
Offering to the Lost Ones calls us to remember the past while confronting the present. It reminds us that the sea, a vast expanse of life and mystery, carries both the weight of ancestral grief and the scars of modern neglect. In this offering, I seek not only to mourn but to inspire a dialogue about healing and reconciliation— between humanity and the natural world.
This April, I’m heading to Italy with our parish for Jubilee 2025, and I am beyond excited. This trip feels like the perfect blend of culture, history, language, and adventure—right up my alley.
The itinerary is packed with iconic stops—Pompeii, the Colosseum, Trevi Fountain—you know, the kind of places you’ve seen in books and movies your whole life. To finally stand in those spaces and take it all in? I can’t wait.
What I’m really looking forward to is soaking up everything. The rhythm of Italian life, the art tucked inside ancient churches, the texture of the frescoes, the sound of fountains in little piazzas, the golden light on old stone buildings—it’s a full-body experience I’m hungry for.
Speaking of hungry… let’s talk about the food. I plan to eat and drink my way through this trip with pure joy: fresh pasta, flaky pastries, pizza, espresso, local vino, and anything else delicious that crosses my path. I want to sit at tiny tables, take a sip, and just be.
Since November, I’ve been studying Italian, slowly but surely. It’s been so rewarding to learn the language, even just the basics. I can’t wait to try it out my Duolingo Italian—ordering food, asking for directions, saying hello and thank you. Even fumbling through it is part of the fun.
This trip is a chance to reconnect with my inner explorer—to wander, to notice, to be curious. I’m going with open eyes, a notebook, a big appetite, and a heart ready for whatever magic Italy decides to offer.
So yes—I’m counting the days. Jubilee 2025, Roman ruins, ancient art, and new adventures? Yes, please.
I’m honored to share that Blackity Black Blanket Library Drape has been invited to exhibit at FIBER 2025, a prestigious international contemporary fiber art exhibition. The show runs from May 10 – June 19, 2025, at Silvermine Galleries in New Canaan, Connecticut. If you’re in the area, I invite you to the Opening Reception on May 17.
This body of work holds deep meaning for me. It explores the often unspoken terrain of implicit bias and the exhaustion that can come from navigating unproductive conversations around “isms”—racism, sexism, classism, and more. These dialogues can often feel circular or emotionally draining, especially when participants aren’t fully self-aware or willing to acknowledge the biases they carry. And let’s be real—implicit bias is a universal experience. It’s not a moral failure. But how we respond to it—that’s the real work.
Each zip tie in this installation is a micro-marker, a fragment of memory and tension, a moment where something was said, done, or left unsaid. The 12,000–15,000 zip ties that make up each blanket aren’t just numbers. They are reminders of the daily weight of microaggressions—small, often invisible cuts that compound over time.
The piece is anchored by two 8-foot antique library ladders, their rungs obscured by cascading black zip tie blankets. These ladders symbolize ambition and ascension—but weighed down, they speak to the difficulty of rising when systemic bias clings to every step.
Blackity Black Blanket Library Drape asks: What are we carrying? And what do we ask others to carry, often without even noticing? This work doesn’t claim to have answers, but it insists on holding the question in view, and hopefully opens a door toward deeper awareness, mutual accountability, and healing.
If you’re in or around Connecticut this spring, come see the work in person. Stand beneath it. Feel the texture of the conversation it invites..
FIBER 2025 Exhibition Dates: May 10 – June 19, 2025 Opening Reception: May 17, 2025 Location: Silvermine Galleries, 1037 Silvermine Rd, New Canaan, CT 06840
Blackity Black Blanket, ladders and emotional baggage cart installation